13: You Are Not Your Sins

“The heart is but a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there likewise are poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough, uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms. There also is God, there are the angels, there life and the Kingdom, there light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace: all things are there.” - St. Marcarius the Great (, Homilies 43:7)

Many of us in the West have a distorted view of salvation based on faulty conceptions of Christ’s atonement.

But you must understand that You are not your sins.

St. Nikon of Optina tells us that “We must consider all evil things, even the passions which war against us, to be not our own, but of our enemy the devil. This is very important. You can only conquer a passion when you do not consider it as part of you.”

“Descend into your heart, and there do battle with Satan.” - St. Marcarius the Great

St. Peter, in his first epistle says that when Christ “suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness - by whose bruise you are healed.” 1 Peter 2:23-24

In St. Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians he says:

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corithians 5:21

This does not mean that Christ became sinful, nor does it mean that he died as a result of our sin being placed upon Him. Remember that Christ said,

“Therefore, my Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This is the command I have received from My Father.” John 10:17-18.

Rather, St. Gregory the Theologian says to “look at it in this manner: that as for my sake he was called a curse who destroyed my curse, and sin who takes away the sin of the world, and became a new Adam to take the place of the old, just so he makes my disobedience his own as head of the whole body. As long, then, as I am disobedient and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ is also called disobedient on my account. But when all things shall be subdued to him on the one hand by acknowledgment of him and on the other by a reformation, then he himself also will have fulfilled his submission, bringing me whom he has saved to God.”